Apply properties values from one object to another of the same type automatically?
I have a type in MiscUtil called PropertyCopy which does something similar - although it creates a new instance of the target type and copies the properties into that.
It doesn't require the types to be the same - it just copies all the readable properties from the "source" type to the "target" type. Of course if the types are the same, that's more likely to work :) It's a shallow copy, btw.
In the code block at the bottom of this answer, I've extended the capabilities of the class. To copy from one instance to another, it uses simple PropertyInfo values at execution time - this is slower than using an expression tree, but the alternative would be to write a dynamic method, which I'm not too hot on. If performance is absolutely critical for you, let me know and I'll see what I can do. To use the method, write something like:
MyType instance1 = new MyType();
// Do stuff
MyType instance2 = new MyType();
// Do stuff
PropertyCopy.Copy(instance1, instance2);
(where Copy is a generic method called using type inference).
I'm not really ready to do a full MiscUtil release, but here's the updated code, including comments. I'm not going to rewrap them for the SO editor - just copy the whole chunk.
(I'd also probably redesign the API a bit in terms of naming if I were starting from scratch, but I don't want to break existing users...)
#if DOTNET35
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Reflection;
namespace MiscUtil.Reflection
{
/// <summary>
/// Non-generic class allowing properties to be copied from one instance
/// to another existing instance of a potentially different type.
/// </summary>
public static class PropertyCopy
{
/// <summary>
/// Copies all public, readable properties from the source object to the
/// target. The target type does not have to have a parameterless constructor,
/// as no new instance needs to be created.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>Only the properties of the source and target types themselves
/// are taken into account, regardless of the actual types of the arguments.</remarks>
/// <typeparam name="TSource">Type of the source</typeparam>
/// <typeparam name="TTarget">Type of the target</typeparam>
/// <param name="source">Source to copy properties from</param>
/// <param name="target">Target to copy properties to</param>
public static void Copy<TSource, TTarget>(TSource source, TTarget target)
where TSource : class
where TTarget : class
{
PropertyCopier<TSource, TTarget>.Copy(source, target);
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Generic class which copies to its target type from a source
/// type specified in the Copy method. The types are specified
/// separately to take advantage of type inference on generic
/// method arguments.
/// </summary>
public static class PropertyCopy<TTarget> where TTarget : class, new()
{
/// <summary>
/// Copies all readable properties from the source to a new instance
/// of TTarget.
/// </summary>
public static TTarget CopyFrom<TSource>(TSource source) where TSource : class
{
return PropertyCopier<TSource, TTarget>.Copy(source);
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Static class to efficiently store the compiled delegate which can
/// do the copying. We need a bit of work to ensure that exceptions are
/// appropriately propagated, as the exception is generated at type initialization
/// time, but we wish it to be thrown as an ArgumentException.
/// Note that this type we do not have a constructor constraint on TTarget, because
/// we only use the constructor when we use the form which creates a new instance.
/// </summary>
internal static class PropertyCopier<TSource, TTarget>
{
/// <summary>
/// Delegate to create a new instance of the target type given an instance of the
/// source type. This is a single delegate from an expression tree.
/// </summary>
private static readonly Func<TSource, TTarget> creator;
/// <summary>
/// List of properties to grab values from. The corresponding targetProperties
/// list contains the same properties in the target type. Unfortunately we can't
/// use expression trees to do this, because we basically need a sequence of statements.
/// We could build a DynamicMethod, but that's significantly more work :) Please mail
/// me if you really need this...
/// </summary>
private static readonly List<PropertyInfo> sourceProperties = new List<PropertyInfo>();
private static readonly List<PropertyInfo> targetProperties = new List<PropertyInfo>();
private static readonly Exception initializationException;
internal static TTarget Copy(TSource source)
{
if (initializationException != null)
{
throw initializationException;
}
if (source == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
}
return creator(source);
}
internal static void Copy(TSource source, TTarget target)
{
if (initializationException != null)
{
throw initializationException;
}
if (source == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
}
for (int i = 0; i < sourceProperties.Count; i++)
{
targetProperties[i].SetValue(target, sourceProperties[i].GetValue(source, null), null);
}
}
static PropertyCopier()
{
try
{
creator = BuildCreator();
initializationException = null;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
creator = null;
initializationException = e;
}
}
private static Func<TSource, TTarget> BuildCreator()
{
ParameterExpression sourceParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(TSource), "source");
var bindings = new List<MemberBinding>();
foreach (PropertyInfo sourceProperty in typeof(TSource).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance))
{
if (!sourceProperty.CanRead)
{
continue;
}
PropertyInfo targetProperty = typeof(TTarget).GetProperty(sourceProperty.Name);
if (targetProperty == null)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " is not present and accessible in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
if (!targetProperty.CanWrite)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " is not writable in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
if ((targetProperty.GetSetMethod().Attributes & MethodAttributes.Static) != 0)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " is static in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
if (!targetProperty.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(sourceProperty.PropertyType))
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " has an incompatible type in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
bindings.Add(Expression.Bind(targetProperty, Expression.Property(sourceParameter, sourceProperty)));
sourceProperties.Add(sourceProperty);
targetProperties.Add(targetProperty);
}
Expression initializer = Expression.MemberInit(Expression.New(typeof(TTarget)), bindings);
return Expression.Lambda<Func<TSource, TTarget>>(initializer, sourceParameter).Compile();
}
}
}
#endif
How to copy properties from one .net object to another
Instead of copying each property manually, I wanted a way to copy all properties without me doing much code.
Have you tried with AutoMapper? Check this link.
AutoMapper is a simple little library built to solve a deceptively complex problem - getting rid of code that mapped one object to another.
I use it everywhere, it's quite useful to get rid of code like the one you had to write :)
how to copy properties from one object to another with different values C#
Deep cloning can be achieved easily through serialization, however to only copy across non-null fields needs more conditional logic, In this case I call this a Coalesce so I've named my Method CoalesceTo. You could refactor this into an extension method if you wanted to, but I wouldn't recommend it, instead put this inside a static helper class. As useful as this might be, I don't encourage it as your "goto" for a production business runtime.
Using Reflection for these types of solutions is usually the most inefficient mechanism, but it gives us a lot of flexibility and is great for mocking, prototyping and quick unit test expressions.
- Although not in this example, it would be easy to add in checks to exclude
[Obsolete]properties for advanced scenarios
The following example uses Property Name comparison, so you don't have to pass in objects of the same type. Notice that IsNull and IsValueType methods have been created to encapsulate those concepts, simplifying tweaks you might want to make to this method.
- This method also checks that properties can be read/written before proceeding, which allows us to support readonly properties on the source object, and of course we don't try to write to readonly properties.
- The final value parse and write is wrapped in a try catch statement that is suppressing any errors, It takes a bit of tweaking to get code like this to work universally, but it should work fine for simple type definitions.
/// <summary>
/// Deep Copy the top level properties from this object only if the corresponding property on the target object IS NULL.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="source">the source object to copy from</param>
/// <param name="target">the target object to update</param>
/// <returns>A reference to the Target instance for chaining, no changes to this instance.</returns>
public static void CoalesceTo(object source, object target, StringComparison propertyComparison = StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
{
var sourceType = source.GetType();
var targetType = target.GetType();
var targetProperties = targetType.GetProperties();
foreach(var sourceProp in sourceType.GetProperties())
{
if(sourceProp.CanRead)
{
var sourceValue = sourceProp.GetValue(source);
// Don't copy across nulls or defaults
if (!IsNull(sourceValue, sourceProp.PropertyType))
{
var targetProp = targetProperties.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.Equals(sourceProp.Name, propertyComparison));
if (targetProp != null && targetProp.CanWrite)
{
if (!targetProp.CanRead)
continue; // special case, if we cannot verify the destination, assume it has a value.
else if (targetProp.PropertyType.IsArray || targetProp.PropertyType.IsGenericType // It is ICollection<T> or IEnumerable<T>
&& targetProp.PropertyType.GenericTypeArguments.Any()
&& targetProp.PropertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() != typeof(Nullable<>) // because that will also resolve GetElementType!
)
continue; // special case, skip arrays and collections...
else
{
// You can do better than this, for now if conversion fails, just skip it
try
{
var existingValue = targetProp.GetValue(target);
if (IsValueType(targetProp.PropertyType))
{
// check that the destination is NOT already set.
if (IsNull(existingValue, targetProp.PropertyType))
{
// we do not overwrite a non-null destination value
object targetValue = sourceValue;
if (!targetProp.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(sourceProp.PropertyType))
{
// TODO: handle specific types that don't go across.... or try some brute force type conversions if neccessary
if (targetProp.PropertyType == typeof(string))
targetValue = targetValue.ToString();
else
targetValue = Convert.ChangeType(targetValue, targetProp.PropertyType);
}
targetProp.SetValue(target, targetValue);
}
}
else if (!IsValueType(sourceProp.PropertyType))
{
// deep clone
if (existingValue == null)
existingValue = Activator.CreateInstance(targetProp.PropertyType);
CoalesceTo(sourceValue, existingValue);
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
// suppress exceptions, don't set a field that we can't set
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Check if a boxed value is null or not
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Evaluate your own logic or definition of null in here.
/// </remarks>
/// <param name="value">Value to inspect</param>
/// <param name="valueType">Type of the value, pass it in if you have it, otherwise it will be resolved through reflection</param>
/// <returns>True if the value is null or primitive default, otherwise False</returns>
public static bool IsNull(object value, Type valueType = null)
{
if (value is null)
return true;
if (valueType == null) valueType = value.GetType();
if (valueType.IsPrimitive || valueType.IsEnum || valueType.IsValueType)
{
// Handle nullable types like float? or Nullable<Int>
if (valueType.IsGenericType)
return value is null;
else
return Activator.CreateInstance(valueType).Equals(value);
}
// treat empty string as null!
if (value is string s)
return String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(s);
return false;
}
/// <summary>
/// Check if a type should be copied by value or if it is a complexe type that should be deep cloned
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Evaluate your own logic or definition of Object vs Value/Primitive here.
/// </remarks>
/// <param name="valueType">Type of the value to check</param>
/// <returns>True if values of this type can be straight copied, false if they should be deep cloned</returns>
public static bool IsValueType(Type valueType)
{
// TODO: any specific business types that you want to treat as value types?
// Standard .Net Types that can be treated as value types
if (valueType.IsPrimitive || valueType.IsEnum || valueType.IsValueType || valueType == typeof(string))
return true;
// Support Nullable Types as Value types (Type.IsValueType) should deal with this, but just in case
if (valueType.HasElementType // It is array/enumerable/nullable
&& valueType.IsGenericType && valueType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(Nullable<>))
return true;
return false;
}
Because we are using reflection here, we cant take advantage of optimisations that Generics could offer us. If you wanted to adapt this to a production environment, consider using T4 templates to script out a Generic typed version of this logic as extension methods to your business types.
Deep Cloning -
You'll notice I specifically skip arrays and other IEnumerable structures... There's a whole can of worms in supporting them, it might be better to not let the one method attempt a Deep copy, so take the nested call to CoalesceTo out, then call the clone method on each object in the tree.
The problem with arrays/collections/lists is that before you could clone, you would need to identify a way to synchronise the collection in the source with the collection in the target, you could make a convention based on an Id field or some kind of attribute like
[KeyAttribute]but that sort of implementation needs to be highly specific to your business logic and is outside of the scope of this already monstrous post ;)
Types like Decimal and DateTime are problematic in these types of scenarios, they should not be compared to null, instead we have to compare them to their default type states, again we can't use the generic default operator or value in this case because the type can only be resolved at runtime.
So I've changed your classes to include an example of how DateTimeOffset is handled by this logic:
public class Employee
{
public int EmployeeID { get; set; }
public string EmployeeName { get; set; }
public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
public float? Capacity { get; set; }
Nullable<int> MaxShift { get; set; }
public Address ContactAddress { get; set; }
}
public class Address
{
public string Address1 { get; set; }
public string City { get; set; }
public string State { get; set; }
public string ZipCode { get; set; }
}
public static void TestMethod1()
{
Employee employee = new Employee();
employee.EmployeeID = 100;
employee.EmployeeName = "John";
employee.Capacity = 26.2f;
employee.MaxShift = 8;
employee.Date = new DateTime(2020,1,22);
employee.ContactAddress = new Address();
employee.ContactAddress.Address1 = "Park Ave";
employee.ContactAddress.City = "New York";
employee.ContactAddress.State = "NewYork";
employee.ContactAddress.ZipCode = "10002";
Employee employeeCopy = new Employee();
employeeCopy.EmployeeID = 101;
employeeCopy.EmployeeName = "Tom";
employeeCopy.ContactAddress = new Address();
CoalesceTo(employee, employeeCopy);
}
This results in the following object graph:
{
"EmployeeID": 101,
"EmployeeName": "Tom",
"Date": "2020-01-22T00:00:00+11:00",
"Capacity":26.2,
"MaxShift":8,
"ContactAddress": {
"Address1": "Park Ave",
"City": "New York",
"State": "NewYork",
"ZipCode": "10002"
}
}
Copy values from one object to another
Jon Skeet and Marc Gravell have a library called MiscUtil. Inside MiscUtil.Reflection there is a class called PropertyCopy that does exactly what you describe. It only works for .NET 3.5.
It works by running over the public properties of the SourceType, matches them up by name with the public properties of the TargetType, makes sure that each property can be assigned from the source to the target and then creates and caches a copier function for those two types (so you don't do all this reflection every time). I've used it in production code and can vouch for its goodness.
What the hey, I figured I'd just post their concise code (it's less than 100 lines w/comments). The license for this code can be found here:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Reflection;
namespace MiscUtil.Reflection
{
/// <summary>
/// Generic class which copies to its target type from a source
/// type specified in the Copy method. The types are specified
/// separately to take advantage of type inference on generic
/// method arguments.
/// </summary>
public static class PropertyCopy<TTarget> where TTarget : class, new()
{
/// <summary>
/// Copies all readable properties from the source to a new instance
/// of TTarget.
/// </summary>
public static TTarget CopyFrom<TSource>(TSource source) where TSource : class
{
return PropertyCopier<TSource>.Copy(source);
}
/// <summary>
/// Static class to efficiently store the compiled delegate which can
/// do the copying. We need a bit of work to ensure that exceptions are
/// appropriately propagated, as the exception is generated at type initialization
/// time, but we wish it to be thrown as an ArgumentException.
/// </summary>
private static class PropertyCopier<TSource> where TSource : class
{
private static readonly Func<TSource, TTarget> copier;
private static readonly Exception initializationException;
internal static TTarget Copy(TSource source)
{
if (initializationException != null)
{
throw initializationException;
}
if (source == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
}
return copier(source);
}
static PropertyCopier()
{
try
{
copier = BuildCopier();
initializationException = null;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
copier = null;
initializationException = e;
}
}
private static Func<TSource, TTarget> BuildCopier()
{
ParameterExpression sourceParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(TSource), "source");
var bindings = new List<MemberBinding>();
foreach (PropertyInfo sourceProperty in typeof(TSource).GetProperties())
{
if (!sourceProperty.CanRead)
{
continue;
}
PropertyInfo targetProperty = typeof(TTarget).GetProperty(sourceProperty.Name);
if (targetProperty == null)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " is not present and accessible in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
if (!targetProperty.CanWrite)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " is not writable in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
if (!targetProperty.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(sourceProperty.PropertyType))
{
throw new ArgumentException("Property " + sourceProperty.Name + " has an incompatible type in " + typeof(TTarget).FullName);
}
bindings.Add(Expression.Bind(targetProperty, Expression.Property(sourceParameter, sourceProperty)));
}
Expression initializer = Expression.MemberInit(Expression.New(typeof(TTarget)), bindings);
return Expression.Lambda<Func<TSource,TTarget>>(initializer, sourceParameter).Compile();
}
}
}
}
Automatically copy property values from one object to another of a different type but the same protocol (Objective-C)
Yes, given the exact context there could be various approaches to this problem.
One I can think of at the moment is to first get all the properties of source object then use setValue:value forKey:key to set the values on the target object.
Code to retrieve all custom properties:
-(NSSet *)propertyNames {
NSMutableSet *propNames = [NSMutableSet set];
unsigned int outCount, i;
objc_property_t *properties = class_copyPropertyList([self class], &outCount);
for (i = 0; i < outCount; i++) {
objc_property_t property = properties[i];
NSString *propertyName = [[[NSString alloc]
initWithCString:property_getName(property)] autorelease];
[propNames addObject:propertyName];
}
free(properties);
return propNames;
}
You may want to checkout the Key-Value Coding Programming Guide for more information.
JAVA - How to copy attributes of an object to another object having the same attributes?
To expand on my comment:
Using Dozer it can be as easy as:
Mapper mapper = new DozerBeanMapper();
ObjectA source = new ObjectA();
ObjectB target = mapper.map(source , ObjectB.class);
or if your target class doesn't have a no-arg constructor:
ObjectA source = new ObjectA();
ObjectB target = new ObjectB(/*args*/);
mapper.map(source, target );
From the Documentation (emphasis by me):
After performing the Dozer mapping, the result will be a new instance of the destination object that contains values for all fields that have the same field name as the source object. If any of the mapped attributes are of different data types, the Dozer mapping engine will automatically perform data type conversion.
Copy all values from fields in one class to another through reflection
If you don't mind using a third party library, BeanUtils from Apache Commons will handle this quite easily, using copyProperties(Object, Object).
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